It was during my senior year of high school that I realized that, unlike most of my peers, I did not even have an inclination of what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. As the year progressed, I grew more and more distraught about my prospects in university, as I did not want to make the wrong choices. I decided that I will choose a career based on the subjects that I achieved the best grades in. This plan made me so ecstatic because I felt like I had found an ultimate solution to what I thought, at the time, was a major problem. By the middle of the second semester, the flaws of my “plan” became imminent because I had managed to achieve my highest GPA’s in both Mathematics and Western World History. There were very few fields that I could visualize incorporating both Mathematics and Western World History. At this time in my high school career I was no longer distraught. I was panicking.
“What was wrong with me?” I would ask. “Aren’t I supposed to know what I want to be by now?” The constant uneasiness I felt whenever I thought about not knowing what I want to do with the rest of my life was heightened by guidance counselors constantly coming to our class rooms and passing out “helpful” literature on the process of getting into university. The main focus of the guidance counselors were our GPA’s or our athletic abilities. None of this advice helped me because I had already tried using my GPA to determine what would be the best sector for me to set goals for, and I had never taken the time to master a sport during high school so I could not even hope to attend university on the basis of being an athlete.
This continued to frustrate me to a point were I was having difficulty sleeping at night. It was not until February 2, 2005 while I was sitting on my bed doing a calculus problem that I heard a radio advertisement for an open call for aspiring models and actors. At first I ignored the advert and continued the mind numbing calculus problem because I felt that acting and modeling were never careers that I have aspired to. However, after I had successfully completed the math lying on my lap, it occurred to me that I really did not enjoy doing it. I quickly dashed to my back pack and searched for a pen to hurriedly scribble down any information about the location and the time the open call would be held. The next day my mother and I set out in a beat-up old Ford (nicknamed the Limousine) to an open call that completely changed the direction of my life.
I had never thought of becoming an actress or a model until that time, but I knew that I need to drastically change my approach to finding my future career in order to make the right decisions about the courses that I would take in university. Because of the open call I recognized that I loved acting. This is not to say that I was actually considering becoming an actress, but I finally started asking myself a new question “What do I love doing?” Just because I am capable of doing algebra or writing a historical essay does not mean that I love doing either. This epiphany made me aware that I could not attend university and pay ghastly tuition fees until I figured out what it is I intend to do with the rest of my life. So instead of hastily going to university, I took the year to determine what I would enjoy doing for the rest of my life, whilst continuing to pursue acting part time.
After months of compiling various lists of pros and cons of each possible career field that I may be interested in, it all came together nearing the end of my academic hiatus. I realized that I love giving people advice and helping them to the best of my ability, so naturally I should become a Psychologist (... and then later an Accountant by day and Beauty Consultant by night...). I had not only found my career path, I had found my career "start". I felt tremendously at ease with what the future would hold, because I was no longer searching for what I was meant to do, all that was left for me was to do it.
To this day, I reflect on that open call, and I am really grateful that I took that chance and stepped outside of academically inclined career path to realize out my purpose in life. And that was to Live It.
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